and brought Colonel Tom Gaitskill and Sheriff Flournoy on board.
Sitting around a small table on the deck they told Captain Lemuel Manse
the story of Diada’s sojourn in Tickfall.
Finally Gaitskill asked:
“Lem, what the devil did that wench mean by hollering ‘Whoosh!’ at
everybody?”
“She was not saying ‘Whoosh,’” Captain Manse replied. “What she said
was ‘_Whu atch!_’ That was the first expression she used to me when the
cannibal chief brought her aboard the yacht.”
“Well, what does it mean?” Gaitskill persisted.
Captain Manse put his hand with a kindly gesture upon his friend’s arm
and told him.
Gaitskill’s fine face turned ashen, and he winced as if a knife had
pierced his heart.
The words mean:
“_Help! I am in trouble!_”
Getting Ready to Die
Sheriff John Flournoy loafed in the office of the Tickfall _Whoop_,
and listened to the bark and splutter of a little one-dog-power engine
attached to the printing press. The air was permeated with the odor of
gasoline, machine oil, and printers’ ink. The cigar he was attempting
to smoke tasted of all three, and he tossed it out of the window.
“Just before Christmas is the worst time of the year,” he sighed
impatiently. “Everybody tries to be so blame cheerful and good-natured.”
He turned around in his screaking swivel-chair and glared at the
typewriter on the table before him. He reached out an idle finger and
touched a key; there was an immediate response in the sharp tap of the
type upon the platen.
“I never did fiddle with one of these things,” he grinned to himself,
as he picked up a sheet of paper and adjusted it in the machine. “But
I’m never too old to learn.”
Then, with the ponderous middle finger of each giant hand, the big
sheriff began to poke out letters which spelled words--sometimes. Tiny
beads of sweat came out on his forehead; his iron jaws clamped; his
lips tightened; and a strained look came into his eyes, accentuating
the tiny wrinkles which formed crows’-feet on each side of his temples.
“Gosh!” he complained. “I never worked as hard in my whole life. Why
in thunder don’t they arrange these letters alphabetically, instead of
scrambling them all over the ranch so a feller can’t find them?”
After a long time he leaned back with a sigh of infinite relief and
snatched the paper from the machine. A broad grin spread over his face
at the sight of his handiwork.
“This is a fearful and wonderful thing,” he chuckled. “I didn’t know
there were as many figures, punctuation marks, and capital letters
in the world as I have interspersed gratuitously in this interesting
communication.”
The bark and splutter of the gasoline engine suddenly ceased. Flournoy
sprang up and opened the door of the office entering into the
press-room.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “Broke down?”
“Naw,” the one lone printer informed him. “I’m finished.”
“No, you ain’t!” Flournoy informed him. “Come in here a minute!”
Wonderingly, the printer entered the office. Flournoy handed him the
sheet of paper on which he had been writing.
“How much space will that take in your paper?” the sheriff asked.
The printer finished reading, broke into a loud laugh, and answered:
“About two sticks.”
“All right,” Flournoy grinned. “You set that up, take some article of
the same length out of your paper, and put mine in its place. Then run
me off three copies.”
Half an hour later the printer entered the office with three damp
copies of the Tickfall _Whoop_ and pointed to the contribution which
Flournoy had furnished.
“These three papers are all you ran off?” the sheriff asked.
“Yep.”
“All right. You understand this piece of news is not for general
circulation.”
Folding and pocketing the three copies, Flournoy walked slowly back
toward his office in the courthouse.
Sitting on a stone step in front of the court house, trusting the
December sun to limber up his rheumatic muscles, was old Isaiah
Gaitskill. Motionless as a stone idol, his battered wool hat in his
clawlike hand, toothless, his face wrinkled like the withered hull of a
walnut, his snow-white wool fitting his head like a rubber cap, he made
a characteristic picture of the South.
“Have you seen a copy of the Tickfall _Whoop_ this morning, Isaiah?”
Flournoy asked.
“Naw, suh. I lef’ my specks to home, an’ so I didn’t git no paper,”
Isaiah answered easily.
“Here’s one of ’em,” Flournoy grinned, taking it from his pocket. “You
better look it over--there’s something about you in it.”
“How’s dat, boss?” Isaiah asked quickly. “Who knowed my name so good
dat he writ’ me in de paper?”
“Your name isn’t mentioned,” Flournoy smiled. “It just speaks of the
colored folks in general. Shall I read the article to you?”
“Yes, suh, ef you please, suh,” Isaiah answered eagerly. “I hadn’t
oughter lef’ my readin’ specks at de hawg-camp. My Lawd, how come all
de niggers got spoke about in de white folks’ paper?”
Flournoy impressively opened the sheet, adjusted his eye-glasses with
dignity, frowned portentously, knowing well that the negro was watching
every move. Having thus impressed Isaiah with the importance of the
article, Flournoy read aloud what he had written a few minutes before:
DANGER! DANGER!
ALL THE NEGROES IN TICKFALL ABOUT TO DIE!
A mysterious disease has broken out among the negroes in Tickfall,
resulting in a number of sudden deaths. The doctors of the town
declare there is no cure. The parish health-officer, Dr. Moseley,
pronounces the disease to be “ancestors,” and declares that all the
negroes have them----
There was a lot more of the same sort, and it was read aloud by Sheriff
Flournoy with due impressiveness, and with the design of striking
terror into the hearts of the negroes of Tickfall. When he had
finished reading, this incorrigible practical joker asked seriously:
“Would you like to have a copy of this paper, Isaiah?”
“Yes, suh, boss! Gimme two copies!” Isaiah exclaimed as he sprang to
his feet. “I’s gwine down an’ tell de niggers somepin dey don’t know!”
Snatching the papers from the sheriff, old Isaiah started toward
Dirty-Six with surprising speed for a man of his age and feebleness.
The first person he met was the Rev. Vinegar Atts.
“How come all dis bust of speed, Isaiah?” the fat preacher grumbled.
“Whut’s itchin’ on you to trabbel so peart?”
Isaiah thrust the paper into the hands of Vinegar Atts.
“Read!” he chattered. “Read dat paper an’ git ready to die!”
The fat, pot-bellied, squat-legged preacher spraddled his feet in the
middle of the road like a Colossus and began to read. Suddenly his
hand trembled, his feet began to shuffle in the sand, and he breathed
heavily and audibly, like an asthmatic donkey. When he had finished,
his hands dropped inertly to his sides, and with wide-open mouth, he
sucked in a breath which threatened to consume all the air in Tickfall.
“My Gawd!” he bawled. “Isaiah, I tell you de honest truth--I ain’t
fitten to die. I ain’t made no kind of arrangements to die!”
“Dat’s right!” Isaiah agreed mournfully. “Dis here terr’ble news is
done kotch me up short, too!”
“Lemme sot down!” Vinegar panted, as he walked to the curb and sat down
with his feet in the gutter.
The paper shook in his trembling hand, and Vinegar glared at it with
horror-stricken eyes. One imagines that a condemned criminal would gaze
at a cup of poison with such a look. The man’s thick lips turned ashen,
and when he snatched off his hat his scalp had become furrowed with
little ridges.
To one unfamiliar with the negro character, it is almost incredible how
much importance the members of that race attach to the printed word.
Since that time, over half a century ago, when every negro received a
copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and by the magic of print found
himself free from bondage, it has never occurred to one of them to
question the veracity of any article in book, magazine, or newspaper.
Printed words have the potency of words of Holy Writ.
“O Lawdy!” Atts bawled. “Ain’t dis awful? My gosh, I never had no
notion befo’ whut a mean, wuthless, onery nigger I is! Isaiah, I’s a
_bad_ nigger. Nobody don’t soupspicion how bad I is!”
“Gawd knows!” Isaiah remarked gloomily.
“Yes, brudder,” Vinegar whined, gasping for air. “Dat is whut is
troublin’ my mind right now!”
“Sheriff John Flournoy gimme two papers,” Isaiah said. “I cain’t read
nothin’. I’s gwine leave ’em wid you. I’s moseyin’ back to de hawg-camp
to git ready to die!”
“Dat’s right, Isaiah,” Vinegar mourned. “Dat is all whut is lef’ fer
us po’ niggers to do. Less all start to git ready to prepare to die!”
A few minutes later Vinegar Atts entered the Hen-Scratch saloon,
dragged his lead-weighted feet over the sand-covered floor, and
fumblingly spread out a copy of the paper upon the table before the
eyes of Skeeter Butts, Hitch Diamond, and Figger Bush.
“Read dat, niggers!” he bellowed in awe-stricken tones. “Read an’
prepare fer de end!”
Skeeter Butts started to read the article aloud, but long before he
had finished his voice was trembling until he could hardly enunciate
the awful words. He stopped, placed his quivering hands over his face,
tried to rub the stiffness out of the muscles of his lips and cheeks,
and sighed:
“You finish it fer us, Revun! Dis is awful!”
When Vinegar Atts concluded, the three negroes groaned aloud.
“Whar did you git dat paper, Revun?” Hitch Diamond inquired, his giant
form shaking with the palsy.
“Isaiah got it from Sheriff Flournoy,” Atts replied.
“Ef Sheriff Flournoy an’ Dr. Moseley is tuck it up, dar ain’t no hopes
fer us,” Skeeter Butts lamented. “Dem white mens do bizzness wid
niggers ’thout no pity. De pest-wagon is comin’ fer us all!”
Into each mind came the instant recollection of that dreadful time,
thirty years before, when the yellow-fever had invaded Tickfall,
leaving barely enough of the living to bury the dead; when two-wheeled
carts had rumbled through the negro settlements of Tickfall at
midnight, and the cart-driver had bellowed through a cloth saturated
with carbolic acid and wrapped around his mouth: “Bring out your
corpse!”
“Whu-whu-whut is ancestors?” Hitch Diamond stammered, glaring at the
newspaper. “Whut kind of new ailment is dat?”
“De paper don’t say,” Skeeter Butts declared tremblingly. “But I figger
it’s some kind of new worm or bug. All de niggers has ’em.”
“I wonder ef dat’s how come I feels so bad?” Figger Bush asked
fearfully, pulling at his little shoebrush mustache. “I thought I
needed a drink or somepin, but dis writin’ says it’s a epizootic!”
“No mo’ drinks fer you, Figger,” Vinegar Atts rumbled. “Ef you figger
on havin’ any shore hopes of heaven, you better cut it out!”
“I--I--I swears off now!” Figger stuttered, looking at Atts with eyes
which nearly popped out of his head.
“All us niggers better refawm,” Hitch Diamond declared. “I don’t
b’lieve prize-fightin’ is a fitten occupation fer a nigger about to
die!”
“Sellin’ booze shorely ain’t a heavenly job,” Skeeter said sadly. “I
never thought ’bout dat befo’.”
“Preachin’ don’t he’p a nigger be as good as I wish it would,” Rev.
Vinegar Atts lamented. “I’s a real mean nigger myse’f!”
“Ef all de niggers in Tickfall dies, whut’ll de white folks do fer
wuck-hands?” Figger Bush asked.
“Huh,” Hitch Diamond grunted. “No white man wouldn’t miss you! You
ain’t did a day’s wuck sense you wus bawned.”
“I wus bawned tired,” Figger said defensively. “I’s jes’ nachelly one
of dese set-easy niggers!”
“You better git a hustle on you in yo’ las days,” Skeeter informed him.
“De good Lawd ain’t got no use fer lazy folks.”
“Us better all git gooder dan we is,” Vinegar Atts said positively. “I
been tellin’ dese Tickfall niggers eve’y Sunday ’bout deir devilmint,
but ’tain’t done ’em no good. Now it’s plum’ too late!”
“Naw, Revun, ’tain’t too late,” Skeeter Butts said earnestly. “I
b’lieve us’ll all listen to religium advices right now. Don’t gib us
up--keep on tryin’!”
“Would you wish to he’p me refawm dese niggers?” Atts asked.
“Suttinly,” Skeeter said eagerly. “Ef dey don’t refawm, I’ll shoot
daylights through ’em--I--I mean I’ll be powerful sorry for ’em.”
Skeeter took a big breath, sighed audibly, and wiped the cold sweat
from his temples.
“Will you he’p in dis refawm, Hitch?” Vinegar inquired.
“Shore will!” Hitch informed him. “I’ll begin on de fust nigger
you p’ints out to me. Jes’ one religium roun’ will be all Hitchie
wants--I’s de real K. O. con of dis town.”
“Dat ain’t de right kind of talk to use, Hitch,” Vinegar said
reprovingly. “You better learn some church-word talk befo’ you starts
out on dis refawm.”
“Dem niggers will git my drift,” Hitch declared with conviction.
“Whut refawms is we gwine start?” Skeeter Butts asked.
“Lawd,” Figger Bush squeaked. “It’s a endless job--look at me for
ninstunce!”
“Whut is yo’ mos’ upsettin’ sin, Figger?” Vinegar asked.
Figger meditated for a long time. Then he said:
“So many sins is done got me down dat I don’t rickolect which one fust
upset me, Revun.”
“Aw, don’t waste no time on Figger!” Skeeter Butts said disgustedly.
“He’s a hopeless job!”
“Don’t say dat, Skeeter!” Figger pleaded. “You know you is done led me
inter all de devilmint I ever done!”
Skeeter gasped like a landed fish.
“Ain’t it de truth!” he mourned. “You ain’t never had sense enough to
be bad by yo’se’f! I shore is made a bad impression on you, Figger--I’s
awful sorry!”
“Less pass some rules ’bout dis refawm!” Hitch Diamond proposed. “We’ll
bunch all de sins togedder an’ tell de niggers to quit ’em all!”
“Dat’s de idear!” Vinegar agreed. “Git me a pencil an’ a piece of
write-on paper!”
Perfervid advocates of temperance and total abstinence violently
proclaim without fear of successful contradiction that in the haunts
of the demon rum are hatched out all the iniquitous schemes for the
destruction of the morals of the people. Nevertheless, this is the
record of the most extensive reform ever achieved in any community
in the United States, and it was born in the Hen-Scratch saloon, in a
negro settlement called Dirty-Six, in Tickfall, Louisiana, on a certain
day in December.
For two hours the four negroes sweated and fumed, consuming cigarettes,
and devising their code of morals. At last Vinegar Atts laid the sheet
of paper on the table and they surveyed the result:
No lofen.
No quorlen.
No fites.
No kussen.
No drams.
No gamblen.
No steelen.
“My Lawd!” Figger Bush sighed. “Dat takes away all my employments. Ef a
nigger cain’t do none of dem things he mought as well be dead!”
“You’se gwine be soon enough, Figger,” Vinegar Atts reminded him in
mournful tones. “Don’t go shovin’ up dat happenstance by wishin’ fer
it!”
“‘No fites,’” Hitch Diamond read. “Dat puts me outen bizziness.”
“I ain’t got no job,” Skeeter mourned, looking at the paper. “‘No
drams, no gamblen.’”
“‘No lofen,’” Vinegar Atts lamented. “I’s a powerful fat nigger to git
active right sudden, at my age.”
Suddenly Atts sprang to his feet and howled:
“Hol’ on, niggers--us needs anodder rule! I adds, ‘No cuttin’ out
church!’”
“’Tain’t necessary,” Hitch snickered. “You cain’t keep de niggers outen
chu’ch when terr’ble times comes!”
“I guess us better git out an’ succulate dis repote, niggers,” Vinegar
said when he received this assurance. “Us ain’t got any too much time.
De Shoofly chu’ch-bell rings to-night at eight o’clock.”
The grapevine telephone was promptly put into operation, and in twenty
minutes every negro in Tickfall knew that a dreadful and mysterious
malady was rife among them, and that death waited just around the
corner with a sharp butcher-knife in his hand.
Laughter died in the throats of the most laughter-loving people in the
world; the thrumming of the banjo ceased in the cabin; the chatter of
care-free women and the shouts of happy pickaninnies sank away into
silence; easy-smiling lips took on a pout of distress, and eyes which
usually glowed with humor looked into the mystery and the dark of the
unknown and were strained and fear-stricken.
Like old hens going to roost, the women began to assemble in the large,
barnlike Shoofly church long before dark. The town began to fill up
with negroes from the plantations and the swamps, and from every negro
settlement in Tickfall, the feet of the negroes made straight paths
toward the Shoofly church. The ringing of the church-bell was a signal
for the belated to hasten, and the building was packed with people when
Vinegar Atts rose and started a hymn. It was an old, familiar tune to
them all, and for a moment the great volume of sound rolled out of
the house and thundered into the ears of all the white inhabitants of
the town. But as the congregation began to consider the meaning of the
words they sang, they appeared ominous with warning and threat, and
gradually the voices died away:
Some folks do not believe
Dat a whale could Joner receive;
But dat don’t make my tale at all untrue!
Dar is whales on eve’y side,
Wid deir mouths opened wide,
An’ you better look out or one will swaller you!
Then Vinegar Atts announced:
“Mr. Muskeeter Butts will specify de puppus of dis meetin’!”
Skeeter arose, clawed at his high, white collar so that he could speak
without strangling to death, adjusted his enormous cuffs so that he
could hold the newspaper, and began in a trembling, squeaky voice:
“Marse John Flournoy gib dis here newspaper to Isaiah Gaitskill.
Brudder Isaiah gib it to Revun Vinegar Atts. I reads a piece offen dis
here front page.”
As Skeeter read, the negroes joined in with a wailing lamentation,
which as the fearful news sank into their consciousness became
thunderous.
“‘Danger! Danger!’” Skeeter read. “‘All de niggers in Tickfall about to
die!’”
(“O Lawd, hab mussy! Dig my grave wid a silber spoon!”)
“‘A mysterious disease has broken out among the negroes in Tickfall,
result-in’ in a num-ber of sud-den death----’”
(“Ah-ee. O he’p us! Gwine to die!”)
“‘De dorctors of de town de-clare dar is no cure--’”
(“Jes’ plum’ ’bleeged an’ bound to die!”)
All night long the negroes remained packed in the Shoofly church,
actually too scared to go home in the dark. Song after song rolled
like thunder from the building, a pathetic effort to drown their fears
with music. Never had Vinegar Atts been as earnest in his prayers and
exhortations, nor had the people of his parish ever before shown such
earnestness in their responses. Every man and woman in the church
professed religion that night. Never was a reform as instantaneous and
as complete.
Along toward day the negroes began to rid themselves of their weapons
of sin. Figger Bush came to the front of the congregation with the
“jerks” and tremblingly laid upon the top of the table a cheap pistol,
a pair of brass knucks, and a deck of greasy, soiled playing cards.
His example was contagious, and in a few minutes the table was loaded
with cards, whisky bottles, dice, brass knucks, daggers, razors, rabbit
feet, and hoodoo-charms of all sorts.
“Cornfess yo’ sins!” Vinegar Atts bellowed. “Cornfess up!”
Negroes sprang up all over the house and bawled their iniquities into
the ears of the people, but each negro was too intent on thinking of
his own transgression to listen to the vices of his fellow, who spoke
as a dying man to dying men!
When the rising sun dissolved the last lurking shadow, the all-night
revival came to an end in this manner:
Hitch Diamond arose, holding in his hand the sheet of paper which
contained the rules of reform devised in the Hen-Scratch saloon.
“I motions befo’ we turns out dat all of us promise to keep de rules
wroted down on dis paper!” he bellowed.
After he had read the list the congregation unanimously adopted this
new code of conduct and dispersed. The people walked home in groups,
looking fearfully behind them at intervals, lifting their feet high
like turkeys walking through mud, ready at an instant for precipitate
flight.
* * * * *
The sudden reform among the negroes of Tickfall caused a sensation
among the white people of the village.
As a general thing, a white man was accustomed to spending four days
hunting for a negro willing to do half a day’s work; he secured
promises from ten darkies to “be dar early in de mawnin’.” Then he
waited ten days, and went out and did the work himself.
But by nine o’clock on this day, the Tickfall bank was crowded with
negroes who wished to see Marse Tom Gaitskill about getting a job.
Every merchant in the town was beset by applications for labor. Darkies
walked from house to house, seeking employment, and every chance
pedestrian upon the street was accosted with a greeting which after
a while almost shattered the nerves of the white inhabitants of the
village:
“Got any wuck fer a strong, willin’ nigger, boss?”
Of course the negroes spoke not a word which would reveal the reason
for this sudden increase in industry, and the white people could only
observe the amazing results and wonder.
Nearly every lawn in Tickfall held a boy busy with tools, cutting the
grass, raking the dead leaves, hoeing out the flower-beds, and mending
the fences. White people accustomed to seeing a workman take ten
minutes to chop down one weed, and half an hour to light his corn-cob
pipe, now observed that all were working with feverish haste, and at
the same time with the most minute care and exactness as if it were a
religious observance of some sort.
“What ails all these coons in town?” Gaitskill laughed as he looked
down the street and saw not a single dusky loafer.
“Christmas is coming!” Flournoy laughed. “Day after to-morrow is
Christmas. Had you forgotten?”
“They must expect to draw a prize-package from the white Santa Clauses
this year,” Gaitskill grinned. “Heretofore they’ve been jest as lazy
before as after.”
At that moment Hitch Diamond came around the corner and stopped in
front of the Gaitskill store.
“Marse Tom,” he said earnestly. “How much do a barrel of lime cost?”
“Not much,” Gaitskill said. “Want to whitewash something?”
“Yes, suh; dat is, some yuther niggers do. Us is got a notion to waste
a lot of whitewash on our fences an’ cabins.”
“I’ll give the niggers all the lime they need,” Gaitskill said
promptly. “Tell ’em to come to this store and get it free!”
Hitch Diamond turned and walked hastily down the street. In the next
half hour he paid a call at every cabin in all the negro settlements of
Tickfall. He pounded on each cabin door with his iron fist, and when
the door was opened he entered and looked around.
“How many niggers lives in dis cabin?” he asked. “How many of dat gang
is got ’um a job?”
When he found a negro who had no employment, he swept down upon him
with all the righteous fury of a prophet of old.
“Whut ails you, nigger? Don’t you know you’s gwine to die? Git ready!
Git ready! Go to Marse Tom Gaitskill’s sto’ an’ tell dem white men
to gib you a bucket of lime an’ a white-wash brush. Den you white
dis cabin, inside an’ out, an’ put whut’s lef’ on dis ole rickety,
busted-down fence! Fix de fence up, too!”
At noon, when Gaitskill passed his store on the way to lunch, a clerk
ran out and said:
“Colonel, do you really mean for us to give all that lime away? The
niggers have carried away forty barrels of whitewash in the last two
hours!”
Gaitskill emitted a sharp whistle of surprise. He scratched his head a
moment, then grinned:
“It’s all right, Frank. Let ’em have it. Christmas is coming!”
Rev. Vinegar Atts found himself overwhelmed with work. The sudden
change in the moral life of his parishioners made a demand upon his
services every moment of that busy day. Sick people, who could not
come to the church, sent for him to come to see them. Prayer-meetings
were held in many of the cabins. A constant stream of people moved in
and out of the Shoofly church, and their singing and shouting could be
heard for a mile.
“Git ready to die! Git ready to die!” Vinegar bawled from house to
house. “De ancestors will git you ef you don’t watch out!”
Under Hitch Diamond’s direction, all the negro settlements were being
whitewashed. Under Vinegar Atts’s admonition the cabins were swept out,
the yards were cleaned, the cabins were aired, and every scrap of paper
and every particle of trash was gathered up and burned. These were
not original ideas with the negroes. They had been taught this in the
fever epidemic, when a government health officer had had charge of the
sanitary work of the village.